The present invention relates generally to management of complex hardware and software in a telecommunication system, in particular supervision of such hardware and software.
More particularly, the invention relates to a fault supervision and fault management system, and a method for distributed fault management in a telecommunication system.
It is a well known fact that complex hardware and software systems are difficult to supervise in a correct way. Most systems use centralized solutions with a centralized analysing software block for the supervision. This analysing block becomes great and complex, also for systems with a moderate degree of complexity. In case of introducing new hardware and software and changing an old one in such a system, it is often difficult to update the model and the methods according to the new hardware and software.
WO 92/17961 relates to an adaptive distributed system for fault tolerance. The system includes a network with at least three nodes, each communicating with at least one other node. Each node is arranged to test whether another node takes a desired or undesired state. It is possible to determine whether N nodes, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to 3, has a desired or undesired state. If a tested node has a desired state it is activated to become a testing node. If an undesired test result is obtained the above procedure is repeated for other nodes until a processor with a desired state has been tested. The diagnosis information is forwarded along paths in the network.
EP 139,069 describes a fault diagnosing distributed system with a plurality of mutually interconnected subsystems on a common level, each subsystem having a function to diagnose faults in other subsystems and protect its own subsystem based upon the result of diagnosis of the faults of the other subsystems.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,055 shows a decentralized system with a plurality of subsystems of the same type which are interconnected. Each subsystem has diagnosing means for diagnosing faults in other subsystems and functions for taking measures in response to diagnosis results.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,354,267 is related to fault handling where the aim is to avoid disadvantages when using an extensive "master transmission control unit".